“We must risk those, my friend. It’s a case of neck or nothing now. Listen! Can you hear anything?” and the captain bent his ear to leeward.
Yes, Mr Meldrum could hear something. They all could hear something above the shrieking of the wind, and the roar of the waves, and the crash of the cakes and bergs of ice tumbling against each other. It was something that sounded like the death-knell of the Nancy Bell, and made their faces blanch with fear. It was the noise of breakers, distant yet, but still as plainly distinguishable as if quite near—breakers breaking on a lee-shore, the most terrible sound of all sounds to a sailor’s ear!
“Stand by to wear ship!” shouted Captain Dinks, and he himself took hold of the spokes of the wheel as he uttered the words, easing it round, while the mate rushed forwards, calling the hands.
“Tumble up, men, tumble up!” cried Mr McCarthy; “don’t stop for your clothes. All hands wear ship.”
Frank Harness and Mr Adams had already darted towards the braces; and, the men soon joining them, the yards were braced round, the mizzen and mainsail being again dropped and sheeted home to enable her to pay off from the shore, which the vessel soon did on the other tack, although the canvas made her bury her bows in the sea and almost heel over till the mainyard dipped.
“Let her carry on, she’ll bear it,” said the captain. “We cannot do too much to get away from those confounded breakers; I’d sooner hear anything than them!”
“So would I,” responded Mr Meldrum, still looking pale, for the Nancy Bell had had a narrow squeak of going to the bottom when wearing; “but we are rushing into almost as terrible a danger as the lee-shore. If we come in contact with one of these icebergs, going at the speed we now do, the shock will sink us to a certainty.”
“Well,” said the captain, “of the two dangers that is the least. By keeping a good look-out we may avoid the ice, which we could never do with the lee-shore, save by getting away from it, as we are doing now. By Jove, isn’t she walking along—the beauty, crippled as she is—just as if she knew the peril she was in!”
“Better not holler till yer out of the wood,” observed Mr McCarthy; “as for myself, I wish it was mornin’ agin, sure!”
He’d no sooner uttered the words, however, than the look-out man forward suddenly gave vent to a frightened exclamation, drawn from him by the sight of something unexpected and terrible.